A Foreword with a Silver Lining. During the final stages of publishing a pape,_. or a book, I always feel strongly repelled by my own writing. Not that it seems scientifically wrong, but it appears increasingly hackneyed and banal and less worth publishing. At last my revulsion reaches such an intensity that, when it comes to reading galley proofs, I always feel reminded of an awful sight once seen in a prisoner-ofwar camp: a man slowly and deliberately eating his own vomit. My aversion wears off with time, and after a few years or so I do not feel so bad about my products; at least they do not seem any more to be worse than other people's writings. So I like to think that this later view is more objective than the first one had been. ...